When radio frequency communication sites in which antennas for RF transmissions are to be installed are erected and constructed, frequently separate lengths of transmission line cables such as coaxial cables of diverse sizes are required. Sometimes as many as six different diameters and cables are required. To provide the necessary cabling, the practice has been to obtain a wooden reel of each individual cable size to be used at the site. Thus, this has required shipment to the site of as many as six reels, at substantial expense.
After the individual wooden reels arrive at the site, installers are required to spend the time necessary to seat the individual reels, one at a time, on jack stands, and then to prepare the top ends of the cables for connector installation. Upon completion of the connector installation, the installers then secure the hoisting grip and hoist the cable to the appropriate location on the support structure and complete the installation procedure. Once the cable is extracted from the wooden reel, the installers lower the jack stands, extract the empty reel, and place the next reel on the jack stands.
This installation procedure is repeated until all necessary reels of transmission line or cable are completely installed which may often be as many as six times. Obviously, this is time-consuming and expensive. The cost of transportation of plural reels is an additional cost which must be paid for by the customer or vendor and, typically, the reels are then thrown away because the cost of returning them to the supplier for reuse is too high.
One attempt to alleviate some of the expense has been to provide a wooden reel of a generally conventional type with wooden partitions nailed in place in parallel to the reel end flanges. In this manner, a reel having multiple compartments adapted for receiving multiple cables may be provided. However, such reels are not desirable for a number of reasons including the fact that they are not reusable because the cost of shipping large, empty reels of that type is too high.
It would be of advantage to provide a cable reel for easily shipping multiple cable types, which is modular and which is reusable and shippable at a reasonable cost.